


In and Out

by Alice_of_the_Ashes



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Telltale Series (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Fluff, Gen, Non-Chronological, Oneshot, Random & Short, just a little, some mild creative liberties taken
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-03-05 00:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13375872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_of_the_Ashes/pseuds/Alice_of_the_Ashes
Summary: That’s what Bruce had told Alfred. But the Pact ended up having bigger plans than he anticipated, and affecting him more than he had imagined. A series of oneshots taking place during Bruce’s time undercover with the Pact.No romantic pairings planned, but some might develop. Not sure how many chapters there will be and not really sure where this will go. Praise and constructive criticism equally welcome.





	1. Blame

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a review with any comments you have.  
> This piece takes place right after Episode 2 – The Pact.  
> I chose to slip Bane the fake Venom while trying to win his trust. During the ambush on the convoy, I chose to follow Harley. I chose to take down agents in violent ways since the group was watching.
> 
> I am new to AO3 and cannot for the life of me figure out how to put a space between paragraphs without going into the rich text editing mode and pressing "enter" after every paragraph so if you guys can help me out with that or point me in the direction of a tutorial I would appreciate it thanks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce reflects on his part in the convoy ambush.

The fear in the agents’ eyes. Harley’s laughter. Bane’s shouts. The whoosh of the hammer, the thud of Bane’s fists. The headlights cutting through the darkness, illuminating clouds of breath on the chilly air. John’s soft giggles coming from the staticky radio. The thump of agents hitting the pavement bonelessly.

  
Bruce gripped the edge of the grey-veined Calacatta marble counter until his fingers turned white and pain thrummed dully up his hands. He stared into the darkness down the sink drain, seeing nothing.

  
The heavy clomping of Bane’s boots. The metallic echo of Harley’s hammer smashing car doors, hoods, windshields. The crackle of flesh and clothing freezing solid in an instant. Harley’s nasal laughter. Bane’s roar of rage as the Pact left him behind, the placebo Venom doing its work (although the effort had been in vain; the Pact had still escaped with Riddler’s body and Bane had still escaped capture). The sound it made when a person who had been frozen through shattered into a dozen pieces. The choking, helpless panic that had clawed at his throat as Waller told him that she wouldn’t be able to come and save the day. Wouldn’t be able to come and end the slaughter, end the Pact’s plans. The desperation sinking in his gut as he did what he could to minimize the casualties while remaining above suspicion.

  
Bruce was no stranger to violence. No stranger to death, even. But those agents had been hurt and killed on his watch. Depending on how you looked at it, he had even helped. He’d had to keep up the charade after all. A few agents’ skulls had to be knocked and noses crushed, for the greater good.

  
He thought he might be sick. He turned on the faucet so Alfred wouldn’t hear if he started retching. The poor man had enough to worry about.

  
It wasn’t the violence that was affecting him. It was the guilt that caused snapshots of the ambush to replay in his head, the knowledge that he was the one that had made it all possible. He’d tried to earn the Pact’s trust just enough to be able to trip them up while they weren’t paying attention, and instead they had taken a giant leap forwards with his assistance and the Agency was reeling.  
Waller had been right when she had said he’d have to get his hands dirty. Damn her, but she’d been right. And from the look of things, they weren’t done getting dirty. The Agency hadn’t been able to intercept the Pact mid-theft as planned, and Bruce found himself still along for the ride until another opportunity presented itself, whenever the hell that was.

  
And now Catwoman was involved. She would be lucky if she didn’t end up as collateral damage, taken out by either Waller or Harley. Damn it all. If only Waller had been able to hold up her end of the plan. The Pact would be safely locked away and their schemes foiled. He wouldn’t be burdened with fears about what the Agency wanted with Riddler’s iced body or why Catwoman would associate with a group of vile murderers.

  
Although, if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t entirely surprised. Her moral compass had always tilted a little more south than he was comfortable with.

  
Bruce looked up into his reflection in the gilded-framed bathroom mirror. He saw pale and sallow skin, dark bags, and a twitching jaw. He looked away quickly. It had been almost twenty-four hours since the Pact had raided the Agency convoy, and he was still spinning helplessly in a convoluted swirl of guilt and anger and fear. They were far from the simple band of hoodlums he had imagined them to be, back when John first mentioned them at Lucius’s funeral. He couldn’t shake the odd sense that this was all a bad nightmare. The Agency’s secrecy, the Pact’s plan, Catwoman’s involvement, everything was falling down around his ears.

  
And where was he? He hadn’t killed anyone, but he had been unable to prevent the Pact from completely succeeding thus far. Not only that. He had activated the EMP. He had beaten the agents that stood in his way. He had scanned Riddler’s cloudy, frozen eyeballs. Was he not as much of a participant as any of the other members of the Pact, despite his ultimate goal?  
Bruce felt dizzy. The tops of his hands were blotchy and a cold sweat was beading on his brow and upper lip. He realized he was breathing heavily. He picked up his watch from where it rested next to the sink. 6:13 PM. He had intended to get some rest before slipping into the Batsuit for the night, but he doubted he would be getting any sleep until after his nightly prowl, when exhaustion always pulled him under as strong as a drug.

  
An itch ran down his spine and he realized he was sweating through his $3000 suit. An irrational rush of anger overtook him. The Pact had made him participate in the robbery at Wayne Tower and the ambush on Waller’s convoy. They were the reason his hands were dirtied, his soul soiled. And now they were making him ruin his suit. He clenched his teeth and resisted the urge to drive his fist through his mirror. They would pay. They would see the gleam of triumph in his eye at the moment he betrayed them, they would see that he had been lying to them the whole time and working against them all along. They would see they had been tricked, played for fools. And they would answer for their crimes, disappear into some dark hole in the ground for the rest of their lives (a deep, nasty part of him hoped they resisted arrest – a piece of his father). Except, perhaps, for John. Bruce’s anger hiccupped. He would put in a good word for John, say he had been manipulated, get him back to Arkham where he could be helped.

  
Bruce splashed water from the still-running tap onto his face and shut it off. He let his quiet fury wash away his fear and doubt, as the water had washed away the sweat. For every sin he committed in the name of bringing the Pact down, they would pay twofold. They were forcing his hand. It was they who bore the full weight of the blame, not him.  
So he told himself.


	2. Prisca

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce has had a hard day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I have not yet played chapter 4. I think I am going to go back through and replay from the beginning. I made a few choices that I kind of regret.  
> I was able to keep Tiffany quiet and in the WayneTech vault.

It had been a long twenty-four hours, and Bruce was tired. Last night, he’d stopped a robbery at a jeweler’s. It had been a relatively minor event, only three robbers, but his bruised ribs had flared up (he was in denial of the growing possibility that they were cracked), and his elbow had gotten wrenched in the scuffle. He’d arrived home mere hours before he had to rise again to muddle through a day of tedious, drawn-out meetings. And now he couldn’t even rest in his expensive, high-thread-count, four-poster, king-size bed. No, he had to come down into this rank den of criminals to help plot and scheme. It was ironic, really, that he was positioning himself to sabotage the group from within, and yet he was the only one who seemed to be doing anything half the time.

So he arrived at Old Five Points tired and grumpy and with pain hammering at his ribs, arm, and the backs of his eyeballs. Before going up to Harley’s quarters to see what she wanted from him, he went to John’s “Ha-Hacienda” (pen was more like it) for a sorely-needed beer. The Christmas lights festooning the exterior hurt his fatigued eyes. He rapped his knuckles on the grimy, rust-spotted door.

John gave a cheerful, “Come on in!”

Bruce slipped inside, making an effort not to look at the various clown masks and bizarre photographs John had tacked all over his walls. John was sitting on his wheelchair in the corner. Doing… nothing, it seemed. His trademark wide grin split his face. It never failed to unnerve Bruce.

“Hiya, Brucie! How are ya doing?”

Bruce cringed at John’s volume. “I’m doing ok, John. What are you up to?”

“Oh, just, uh, thinking. About Harley.”

It was a little creepy if true and suspicious if not. “Uh huh. Mind if I grab a beer?”

“Of course not. You don’t even have to ask. You’re my friend after all.”

Bruce didn’t like the flash of guilt that shot through his chest like a lightning bolt, didn’t like it one bit. This was a job, an act, that’s all it was. With a dash of humoring John thrown in. The group John had stumbled into was dangerous, far more dangerous than he had imagined, dangerous enough to rival Lady Arkham. He was here to sabotage them from the inside and do whatever he could to stop them from taking hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent lives. He normally wouldn’t hesitate to smash Freeze’s head against the wall or jam a batarang into Bane’s beefy shoulder (well, maybe he would hesitate a little… Bane had proved quite formidable). Hell, he’d relish planting his knuckles firmly into Harley’s cheek just for the shit she’d pulled at Wayne Tower alone. He hated these people. They were scum, all of them, murderers and thieves. Their apparent sadness over Riddler’s death be damned. He was here to stop them. Everything he’d done for them was an act. They would see justice.

But John was different. He was dangerous, of course. Bruce wasn’t entirely sure he should have been released from Arkham. He’d sensed an underlying madness, a tightly coiled energy, from the moment John Doe had walked into his cell in the asylum. John’s comfort with deceit at opportune moments – blaming Bruce for beating his “welcoming party” to a pulp, starting a violent riot to provide Bruce with a chance to get to the phone, being able to play off their suspiciously long time in the Wayne Tower vault with such ease – made Bruce nervous, to say the least. He was smarter than he looked, smarter, maybe, than even Bruce knew. Wasn’t _that_ an uncomfortable thought?

“You ok there, bud? Kinda spaced out.” John’s smile had slipped, his brow wrinkled with concern.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m ok. I just… had a long night.” Bruce eyed the box of Prisca beer by John’s feet. Technically, it was Bane’s stash, but Bane didn’t have to know, and Bruce was sure John wouldn’t tell. There was that stab again. He bent and took a bottle. His headache increased in intensity as blood rushed to his brain and dizziness made his skull buzz. “Do you mind?” He gestured at John’s bed.

John waved a pale hand. “Go right ahead! Make yourself comfortable!”

Bruce sat, a little too heavily for his ribs’ liking. The bed didn’t like it much either, from the sound of it. He tried not to think about the last time the sheets were washed.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Nothing exciting. Just… couldn’t sleep. Insomnia.”

“Oh. Have you tried counting sheep? I’ve tried it. Seemed to help more if I imagined that instead of jumping over a fence, they were jumping off a cliff.” John swallowed a giggle.

Bruce raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Oh yes, John was different. He was the only one in the group who didn’t seem to have clear motivations for being there. Bruce suspected the only thing keeping him in this… dump underground was Harley. John didn’t have a criminal background (that the Batcomputer was aware of), he didn’t want money or power, and he didn’t have debts. He had a childlike joy and innocence that still surprised Bruce. There was a part of John, a pretty big part, that was _good_.

And that was why Bruce felt increasingly uncomfortable with the charade. Apart from the growing threat that Harley, Bane, or Freeze would discover his plans – or, God forbid, his identity as Batman – Bruce felt bad for lying to John. For _using_ him. John was so trusting. He thought the world of Bruce. Was lying to an ally and using them as a tool to accomplish a goal something Batman would do? Bruce thought not.

He used the corner of John’s nightstand to pry the cap off the bottle. The cap fell to the filthy carpet by his foot almost noiselessly. Bruce sat and stared at it.

Bruce was seeing fewer and fewer outcomes where John didn’t find out. Either Batman or Bruce would have to help the Agency sweep in and take the group down, and John was complicit enough that he would take some heat for it. Bruce wasn’t sure what was worse, John realizing his best friend had been playing him the whole time, or his idol tossing him into a cell to rot. It was looking more likely that the former would happen, followed soon by Harley braining the best friend with her massive hammer.

“You sure you’re ok? You still haven’t touched your beer.” The genuine concern audible in John’s voice and visible across his face flipped something in Bruce’s mind, solidified a decision.

Bruce resolved to do what he could to help John in the limited amount of time he had left before he had to take drastic action to stop the group. He would make every effort to coax the good in John to the forefront, to encourage the side of John that liked slushies, selfies, and bad jokes. The part that would risk Freeze’s wrath to save someone he saw as his friend. Hopefully, Bruce would make enough of an impact that John seeing Bruce or Batman destroy Harley’s plans and stick him back in Arkham wouldn’t send him over the edge. That was all he could do.

“Long day at the office. Stressful. Still thinking over some things.”

“Well, not to be a broken record, but if you want to let some stuff off your chest, I’m here. I _did_ pick up some tricks at Arkham.”

Bruce looked at John’s wide, earnest eyes and gentle smile for a beat, took a swig, then leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, warm beer cradled in his hands. John mirrored him, welcoming, attentive.

“I barely had four hours of sleep last night, and then the first thing on my desk when I come in to work is a letter of complaint from Nathan, a member of the board…”


	3. Trust and Pity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During his time with the Pact, Bruce finds himself playing with trust and pity in equal measure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not completely happy with this piece. I feel it's not coherent enough but I am done working with it. Praise and criticism always welcome.

He pitied her, deep down.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, and one he kept buried to the best of his ability. It made his mission more difficult. It was easier to lie and sabotage and plot with Waller if he thought of the Pact as nothing more than highly skilled thugs, the kind he beat into a pulp on a near-nightly basis, so numerous that they all blended together into a faceless mass in his memory.

But he knew what it was like to lose a parent (or two). He could empathize with how much worse that loss would be if it was intentional, a conscious decision made in spite of the child. _Despite_ the child. How much more was that loss multiplied with Harley as a psychologist, a doctor of the mind, a specialist regarding the very thing her father struggled with? She devoted years to studying the mind, what made it break, and how to fix it, only to lose her father to a battle with mental illness.

What further horror must lie in the knowledge that his particular brand of insanity was genetic? That she likely would see her sanity slip as his had, that she would meet the same end? From that standpoint, her obsessive drive to get her hands on the virus was understandable.

Did she lie awake at night, afraid to fall asleep, afraid she would wake up insane? When she worked at Arkham, did she see herself in the inmates there?

Oh, yeah, Bruce felt bad sometimes.

Then he would remember the people she had killed (it would have been more, if he hadn’t been there to stop her on multiple occasions). He would remember the people she _would_ kill if she got her hands on the virus. Harley’s life of crime didn’t begin and end with the virus. Exactly when and where Harley Quinn had had her origin, Bruce wasn’t sure. Her father’s death was likely only one of many dominoes that had to tumble down to bring Harley Quinn to Old Five Points with the rest of the crew. But Bruce knew that the virus was just one step for Harley, her five-yard target. If she got the virus, she would set her sights on some other goal, one that involved hurting innocents and breaking the law. She would pose even more of a threat with the boost in vitality that the virus would provide, assuming it didn’t kill her.

She had blood on her hands, and she was a hair’s breadth from insanity even without the virus’s side effects. She had to be stopped.

But sometimes Bruce would hear her sweet voice floating down from her chambers, or catch her looking into space with a thousand-yard stare (as a fellow member of the Dead Parents Club, he knew what was on her mind), and he felt bad. He felt bad for his betrayal of her hard-earned trust, and for his willingness to be just one more domino of tragedies and disappointments and let-downs for Harley Quinn.

 

* * *

 

He pitied Freeze, too.

It was inconvenient, his inability to avoid empathizing with people who experienced familial loss. It was so much easier as Batman, when he didn’t have to sit and listen to a carjacker’s life story: their struggles with school, their dog they pinched pennies to feed, their dead sister, their drunken father. He suspected there would be a lot less busted-up criminals landing on the steps of Gotham PD if that were the case. If his sense of duty weren’t as solid and immovable as a pillar of stone, he likely would have thrown his hands up and told Waller to get someone else to infiltrate the Pact and stop their master plan. Batman didn’t do well with being pulled in different directions.

Freeze was unpleasant, and impossible to talk to. He was blue and metal and off-putting. He murdered men like Bruce would swat a fly. With casual indifference. At least Bane was loyal to those he trusted. Bruce suspected that Freeze lacked the ability to be loyal to anyone other than his wife.

Damn his wife. If not for Nora, Bruce wouldn’t care about the doctor. If Alfred or his parents were preserved as Nora was, suspended between life and death, what wouldn’t Bruce do to save them? He wasn’t sure, and that worried him a little. Loss changed you (oh how he knew that to be true), and desperation changed you as well.

He wondered if Freeze was aware that if he succeeded in saving Nora, she would likely be horrified by what he had become, physically and morally. She might want nothing to do with him. What would Freeze be without Nora? Perhaps it would be for the better if Freeze never found out. His love for Nora was the only human part of him that remained. His panic when the EMP temporarily shut down the systems keeping her alive and the countless hours he spent poring over research in his private corner of Old Five Points, constantly pushing to bring her back, pricked Bruce’s heart with that uncomfortable and inconvenient little emotion: pity.

Bruce couldn’t help but be aware that he was taking deliberate action to keep Freeze from reuniting with his wife, and possibly taking action that would kill Nora. He made a vow to himself that he would do whatever he could to keep Nora safe, regardless of what happened to Freeze.

Bruce prayed that his time with the Pact wouldn’t go on for much longer. Soon he’d be internally wrestling over whatever dead or dying family member Bane had up his sleeve.

Waller’s speech about dirty hands and grey areas haunted him increasingly often. He understood now. Gotham needed him. It needed him to continue the mission and stop the Pact from getting the virus. And the only way he could keep moving was to swallow his pity for this small band of misfits and press on with the lies and deceit. Only for a little longer.

 

* * *

 

Sympathy was at the forefront of Bruce’s mind when he knelt by the airlock trapping Freeze while Waller was distracted. Freeze’s breathing was labored, his skin darkening. Even with the virus speeding through his body, he looked at Bruce with keen calculation. He knew why Bruce had done what he did; although he didn’t know Bruce was Batman, it all made sense. The rich son of a legendary criminal was recruited by the government to stop a criminal conspiracy. Probably in an attempt to begin to atone for his father’s sins.

If it were up to Waller, Freeze would die of heatstroke and the virus, presenting a nice little specimen for her scientists to slice and dice and peer at under microscopes. As far as Bruce was concerned, that was murder.

Freeze knew the game was up. He told Bruce everything he knew, and in exchange, Bruce kept up his end of the bargain. He set the temperature of the airlock to far below freezing, giving Freeze a chance to live. As ice crept across the glass, Bruce whispered a promise to keep Nora safe. He saw a glimmer of gratitude flicker in Freeze’s eyes before he was covered by a sheet of white. The gratitude meant that he believed, he trusted.

It was his guilt and pity that drove him to approach Harley on the bridge not as Batman, descending in a hail of smoke bombs and dropkicks, but as Bruce. She was furious at the sight of him, for which he honestly couldn’t blame her. His maneuvering during the hunt for the mole had been nauseatingly skillful. He looked at her, pacing back and forth like cougar cornered by the hounds, trigger in her gloved hand, ruby lips pulled back in a snarl, and he saw a desperate woman terrified of being swallowed by the same insanity that took her father. He tried to talk her down. The thought of seeing her hurt or dead or locked in some Agency blacksite made his queasy stomach twist. If she surrendered, he could try to pull some strings, as Bruce or Batman. There could be hope. He could bargain with Waller, and Gordon would be loathe to see even the worst criminal turned into a human experiment.

But Harley cursed in his face. Her trust had been broken, and she wouldn’t believe a word out of his mouth ever again.

As a last-ditch effort, he sent John to talk to her. Tricky John, who was far smarter than he looked. Confused John, who Bruce was convinced had a seed of goodness that just needed to be watered and nurtured.

Bruce felt pride swell in his chest when John handed Harley over to the Agency, spitting mad but unharmed. That pride turned to a mixture of rage and sorrow when Waller attempted to shoot John, who had betrayed the woman he loved to do the right thing and save lives. With one stroke Waller had shattered John’s fragile trust in her and the Agency. He watched with mounting dismay as the bridge standoff rapidly turned to shit. Smoke clouded the air, explosions and gunfire drowned out the yells of the wounded and disoriented. Through the haze he saw John, balanced on the guardrail of the bridge, babbling nonsense about him and Batman bringing the Agency to justice. He hollered John’s name, but John was heedless. He tipped back on his heels, and was gone before Bruce could even get close.


	4. A Good Man Is Hard to Find

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good men are in short supply in Gotham.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just finished episode 5 the other day. What a rollercoaster. I loved this season and the way it played with the Batman mythos and pulled at the heartstrings. I’ll definitely be doing a piece based on the version of episode 5 that I got (the vigilante version), but I might do a piece on the villain version as well, which I watched on Youtube. I might be doing a piece on Alfred too. We’ll see.  
> Anyway, have some feels about Gordon. And yes, the title is a reference to one of my favorite short stories.  
> Set midway through episode 5 of the vigilante outcome. Iirc Gordon remains mad at you if you take the villain route. I took some mild creative liberties with the dialogue.

Good men were in short supply in the world, let alone in Gotham. As a child, Bruce had believed his father to be a good man. He had looked up to him, wanted to be like him when he grew older. After his parents’ murder, Bruce had held on to that picture of his father, the ideal. Until he learned the truth. His father had been a criminal, had contributed to crime’s death grip on Gotham and had engineered the incarceration or murders of those he found inconvenient or threatening.

Bruce still lay awake at night, trying to reconcile the father he had known with the father he had discovered with Cobblepot’s return to the city, shuffling through the ruins of the shattered image of Thomas Wayne, parsing his memories of being tucked into bed and taken to the movies and hugged until he couldn’t breathe and holding them up against the shadow Thomas the crime lord had cast over Gotham. His father had loved him and his mother. But his father also had blood on his hands, and had ruined countless lives. Hell, the GCPD was probably currently dealing with some sort of problem that stemmed from actions his father had taken. Bruce had to reform and rebuild who his father had been in his mind, shift the broken pieces around and fit them back together in a way that made sense with what he now knew. And what he knew was this:

Thomas had loved and taken care of his family, but a good man he was not.

There was Alfred, of course, always steadfast and supportive, willing to help however he could, be that making Bruce a cup of tea or bandaging his wounds after dragging his limp body from the Batmobile. Alfred was the only person Bruce could fully trust with his struggles and dual identities.

Lucius had known his secret, but Bruce had remained mindful of who he was to Lucius: Batman and his employer. He had cared for Lucius, admired him, but he had often adopted a confidence and serenity around Lucius that he didn’t feel. Lucius was not his confidante, couldn’t be when he was risking so much to support Batman’s mission. In the end, Lucius had become another good man taken down in the crossfire because he associated with Batman. One less good man in the world.

Harvey had been good, once. How quickly that had changed, despite all of Bruce’s best efforts.

Catwoman and Tiffany were loyal, to an extent. Selina served herself at the end of the day, and her morals were grey on a good day. Tiffany was similarly confused, and he sensed that she didn’t fully trust him yet. In time, he hoped to bring her around. Neither of them could he lean on, depend on for moral guidance and steadfastness.

 

Bruce had trouble concentrating on the task at hand. John (no, _Joker_ ) was on the loose, God knew where, with Waller in his grasp. Bruce had no love for Waller, but she didn’t deserve to be murdered. No one did. He tried to ignore the panic clawing at the back of his mind, the little part of him screaming that he had failed, he had failed John and worse than that he had screwed him up even more and given him a dangerous and misguided cause to fling all his enthusiasm at. Bruce did not allow himself to wonder if saving John’s ( _Joker’s_ ) life was beyond his control now.

But that wasn’t the only reason he couldn’t concentrate. He was in Gordon’s company for the first time since he had lost his badge. Bruce had turned that day over and over in his mind, trying to think of some way he could have influenced the situation so that Gordon hadn’t lost his job. He couldn’t think of one, not while maintaining his cover. He had considered begging Waller to allow Gordon back in the field, but he didn’t want Waller to doubt Gordon’s objectivity when it came to Batman any more than she already did, and Bruce Wayne publicly calling for Gordon’s pardon would have aroused suspicion. No, despite his residual guilt, Bruce knew that Gordon’s hotheadedness had cost him his badge. It was understandable and unfortunate, but his fault all the same.

And Bruce had missed him. The older man was an experienced and battle-scarred dog and the angel on Batman’s shoulder, keeping him from brutalizing thugs as much as he might want to, keeping him at least somewhat accountable to the law. Without Gordon’s influence and advice, Bruce wasn’t sure what Batman would be. Probably closer to a criminal than a hero. Possibly a murderer. Possibly something close to what John had become. Gordon understood Batman in a way Alfred couldn’t. He understood Batman’s drive to spend every night with his nose to the streets, because it was Gordon’s drive too. Alfred had adopted Bruce, raised him as his own son. And Gordon, whether he knew it or not, had adopted Batman.

Now Batman stood in the still-active crime scene at Riddler’s former home. The water tower had been garnished with gaudy graffiti and string lights. Joker’s ostentatious car ticked, engine still warm. Scraps of paper and flecks of grit skittered across the pavement ahead of the breeze. Gordon nursed his coffee. Seeing him in plainclothes was unsettling and borderline disturbing. Bruce had always thought of Gordon as A Cop. The idea that Gordon didn’t live and sleep in the station, trench coat permanently about his shoulders and badge constantly on his person, was a foreign one. Gordon kept casting quick glances at him. Bruce sensed an apology was incoming. Thankfully, Montoya had left them alone.

Tiffany’s drone buzzed about like some giant insect, and when the machine hovered to scan a pile of refuse, Gordon cleared his throat.

“I missed this, you and I, raking over a crime scene. I messed it up, didn’t I?” Gordon’s moustache twitched as he pursed his lips, eyes narrowed in discomfort. Shame? Embarrassment? “We had an agreement. We worked together, made Gotham safer.” He sighed. “I lost my head the other day. I want you to know… I’m sorry. I cracked, like I knew I would. I’m not proud of what I said.”

Bruce suspected that Waller had hoped Gordon would blow up at her so she would have a viable excuse to get him out of her way. Gordon wouldn’t have approved of Bruce Wayne’s undercover mission, and it would have been difficult to hide from him. A part of Bruce was grateful that Gordon had been benched and kept out of harm’s way. Gordon’s fury was worth his safety.

“No apology necessary. You did what you thought was right, Jim.”

Gordon’s features softened into an appreciative smile. “You’re a good man for saying that.” He walked away before the situation could become too awkward.

A jolt ran down Bruce’s spine. _Was_ he a good man? He used to think so. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Joker was partially of his own making; he’d manipulated and used John to get to the Pact. He’d teamed up with Waller.

He needed Gordon. Gordon kept him honest. Things had gotten grey with Waller, but they were rarely so with Gordon. He would call Bruce out if he so much as gave a thug an unnecessary bruise. He needed that accountability.

Bruce whispered, “I’ve missed this too.”

Good men were hard to find, and good men had to stick together.

 

Bruce’s feet were rooted to the floor, his mind full of nothing but roaring shock. _Alfred’s leaving me._

He wasn’t entirely surprised. He’d seen the tremors in Alfred’s hands, noticed how he balked at Batman’s violence increasingly often. But he had never pictured Alfred up and leaving entirely.

Alfred began to tug his suitcase toward the door. Bruce glanced out the window, not wanting to see Alfred’s departure. The bat signal glowed on the clouds. Bruce heard a sharp intake of breath behind him and knew Alfred had seen it, too. He sucked at his teeth. Anguish welled in his chest, but his eyes remained dry. It was in Alfred’s best interest to leave, and he wanted the best for Alfred. He would manage. He had Gordon.

“Trash goes out at three. There’s lasagna in the fridge. You’ll manage.”

The door clicked shut, and Bruce squeezed his eyes shut. The burning behind his lids came; a sense of loss yawned in the hollow of his throat. _One less_. A good butler, like a good man, is hard to find.


	5. Fathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce is confronted with a difficult yet easy choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This about wraps it up for concepts that stood out to me when playing the game. If I add anything further, it will probably take place after season 2, or might be slightly non-canon. We'll see. I'll leave this work as "in-progress" just in case.
> 
> At the end of episode 5, I chose Batman over Alfred. With 0 hesitation. Sue me.
> 
> Reviews make my day.

Bruce couldn't shake the sense that he was losing his father, again. Not losing the man he had admired but never really known, but losing the man who had raised him and loved him. The man who had taught  _him_  how to be a man, who had risked life and limb for him. How many sleepless nights had Alfred spent, hunched over the console of the Batcomputer, helping Bruce track down criminals? How often had Alfred's quick thinking or alerts to Gordon made the difference between life and death? Without Alfred, there wouldn't be a Batman. Bruce would have died in some filthy alley a long time ago, or never taken up the cowl to start with, or worse, become like his father.

And Alfred was doing something he had never done before. He was asking the impossible of Bruce. He was asking Bruce to choose between Batman and his  _real_  father. To put aside his drive, his passion, hell part of  _himself_  to keep Alfred from walking out the door. It was akin to Alfred asking Bruce to cut off his leg. No, it was worse; Bruce was fairly sure that Lucius (no, Tiffany now) could cook up some sort of replacement bionic leg. Alfred was asking Bruce to deny half of who he was. To let innocents die when he could prevent it.

Bruce couldn't blame Alfred for wanting to leave. He had seen what their (mis)adventures had done to the older man. Alfred had seen war in his younger days, but he was white haired and soft of heart now. He shouldn't have to worry about being abducted by one of the psychos running around Gotham. He shouldn't have to help Bruce parse through the evidence surrounding the murders of friends and colleagues. It was no life for an old man. Alfred deserved better.

Bruce kept his face stoic. Showing his struggle would only upset Alfred, not persuade him to change his mind. A flash of light in his peripheral caught his attention. The bat signal glowed on the thick, dark clouds masking Gotham's night sky. Alfred's shoulders pinched together with worry. Bruce knew that he always wondered if each signal would be the last, would be the one that killed the man he raised from boyhood.

"You don't have to do it, Bruce. There are other ways of doing good in the world."

Bruce had already tried that, as Wayne the billionaire. Fat lot of good that had done him. His money was a blunt and imprecise tool at best. Harvey was proof of that.

"But you pour everything into your bloody crusade." Bruce suppressed a prickle of offense. "And I know you too well to hope that will ever change."

A sudden calm came over Bruce. An acceptance, a clarity. Alfred was right. He could not split who he was down the middle. And Alfred could not continue on like this in a constant state of worry and wrestling with what had to be close to PTSD. He deserved to live his twilight years in peace.

"You're right, Al. I will always be Batman. And that will never change."

"I know." There was an undercurrent of sadness in Alfred's voice, but he did not argue. "Rubbish goes out on Tuesday. There's some leftover lasagna in the freezer. I'm sure you'll manage." As if Alfred only helped by providing Bruce's meals and cleaning up.

Alfred left without looking back. Bruce watched him go, apologies and take-backs on the tip of his tongue, but he controlled himself. He had a sudden fear that Alfred felt he was choosing Gordon over him, but Bruce dismissed it. It was silly. Alfred wouldn't be so petty.

The Pact wasn't done taking from him, it seemed. Wasn't done adding to his nightmares and tragedies and troubles. As he looked into the future, prophet-like, and saw himself tangling with the Agency, visiting John in Arkham, and running into Waller's "squad" on Gotham's streets, he wondered if it ever would be. His deal with the devil would keep circling back to bite him in the ass like ouroboros. He had a feeling he was never going to fully escape from the shadow of this colossal shitshow.

He had lost a good friend and colleague, his faith in the law, his confidence in his own moral fiber, and now his father. Again. He could probably think of more losses caused by the Agency and the Pact (both direct and indirect) if he sat down and made a list.

"In and out," Bruce had said. How foolish he had been. How naïve.

Damn Waller. Damn the stupid Pact. Damn every last one of them all to hell.


End file.
